Disparate Cruelty

In July of 1640, the General Virginia Court had to decide a case involving three runaway servants. The trio had fled Virginia, were captured in Maryland, and now stood before the colonial court, condemned guilty, and awaiting their sentencing.

An all-white English court delivered the sentencing for the same “crime” in three stages. First, it declared that each runaway servant was to be whipped. Then it pronounced additional sentencing for two of the three defendants:

One called Victor, a dutchman, the other a Scotchman, called James Gregory, shall first serve out their times with their master according to their Indentures, and one whole year a piece after the time of their service is Expired…and after that service…to serve the colony for three whole years apiece.

The court specified the names and nationalities of two Euro-descended defendants and gave them the same sentence.

The court closes by pivoting to third runaway servant. He isn’t Euro-descended; he hails from Africa. And the court sentences him thus:

The third being a negro named John Punch shall serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural Life here or elsewhere.

 The court specifies the Afro-descendant defendant’s name but not his nationality. For the Court, John Punch is simply “a negro.” More important, the court further departs from sentencing parity by levying a drastically different servitude requirement for John than his counterparts. Whereas Victor and James must serve four years beyond their previously assigned indentures, John must remain in servitude for life.  

Two additional legal factors in this ruling demand attention. First, the court’s disparate cruelty lacked legal precedent. As renowned Judge and legal scholar A. Leon Higginbotham Jr writes, the “imposition of lifetime servitude on the black participant alone was not predicated on any previous legislative enactment or any other colonial judicial precedent.” Second, although the court grants that all three men committed the same “crime”—and that the Dutchman was the group’s leader—the court never provided a rational for its disparate sentencings. It appears the colonial court’s members didn’t believe they had to.

There are no records of anyone pleading John Punch’s case. No one with any significant influence or power called for an appeal. Given the limited written records available, it appears likely that John suffered life-long servitude: The court hadn’t even provided John the possibility that his master might free him. John suffered an activist court’s intentional degrading treatment of “negroes.” His body was unjustly condemned to keep a brutal score.